Yale, Clinton's Alma Mater, Is Little Moved by Impeachment Drama
By R.W. APPLE Jr.
New York Times
nytimes.com
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- During the Vietnam War and the Watergate crisis, the campus of
Yale University, like many others, was politically energized, if not radicalized. The university
chaplain, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., took a prominent role in opposing the war, and many
undergraduates viewed the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon as a triumph over the forces
of evil.
No such passions grip the Yale campus today as President Clinton faces an impeachment drama in
which a number of Yale alumni are playing central roles.
"There is no sense here that we are witnessing a great historical moment," said Nicole Itano of
Boulder, Colo., 20, managing editor of The Yale Daily News.
Glenn Hurowitz, 20, of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., the newspaper's editorials editor, said that students
were "tired of this stuff and tired of our leaders doing nothing to define the other issues."
Last month, The Yale Daily News urged Clinton to resign "to put this incredible, indelible blemish of
American history behind us and restore the assumption of honesty and personal integrity in our
highest elected official."
That was during the tenure of the class of 1999, now seniors. A new editorial board, composed of
juniors, takes a different position, arguing against what editor in chief Isaiah Wilner, 20, of Seattle,
called "an open-ended congressional witch hunt."
"The Beltway has escaped from the rest of the country," Wilner said. "The Judiciary Committee
needs to set a time limit and to limit itself to the Starr report issues."
Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were members of the class of 1973 at Yale Law
School. They had planned to take part in a 25th reunion celebration next weekend and attend a
luncheon honoring Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who graduated from the law school in 1964.
But the trip was abruptly canceled last Friday. A White House spokesman said the president
wanted to be available for Middle East peace talks.
Clinton's private lawyer in the Lewinsky case, David Kendall, and a new White House coordinator
of his political defense, Gregory Craig, also went to the law school. Brett Kavanaugh, a main author
of the Starr report, has a bachelor's and a law degree from Yale.
All that has had little impact on undergraduates' thinking.
"There was no particular affection on this campus for George Bush, who was even more closely
identified with Yale, and there is no particular disaffection with President Clinton," said Dan
Sommers, 21, an economics and politics major from New York, who nevertheless favors the
president's resignation.
What Clinton did in private is his own business, Sommers said, "but he involved almost everyone in
the Cabinet in defending his lies, and he has weakened the presidency so much that nothing
substantive has happened in Washington since January, at a time when we badly need strong
leadership."
The impact at the law school has been far greater. Yale Law Review editor Laura Ahn declined to
discuss Clinton's situation, and several professors spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
"There is a powerful sense of betrayal," a professor said. There had been a surge of optimism and
hope when the president took office, but now he is seen by most people here and elsewhere as just
another pol."
Several teachers recalled the traditional cocktail party at the law school on the opening day of
classes in the fall of 1992. "The first-year students," one said, "knew that Bill Clinton had stood
where they were standing only 20-odd years before, and they were filled with idealism and ambition
because he was running for president."
Prof. Akhil Reed Amar said that what he called "the hard-edged view that nothing in the Starr
report comes even close to an impeachable offense" made him "a little nervous" in view of the
possibility that Clinton may have committed perjury in grand jury testimony.
Amar, a law school professor who is considered an expert on both the Constitution and criminal
procedure, said: "I would argue that even if the charges are true, and he is technically impeachable,
this would not be a sensible exercise of the awesome, disruptive power of impeachment. In this I am
affected by the fact that the American people twice voted for Bill Clinton knowing to a considerable
certainty what his character is like."
His greatest fear, Amar continued, is a deeply partisan debate, which would be bad, he said, "for
the process and the country."
Historian John Morton Blum, a professor emeritus, was equally critical of Clinton and Congress,
describing them as "the worst leadership combination this country has had since Calvin Coolidge."
Clinton, he said, has "a lifelong record of dissembling" and "lax principles about anything, public or
private."
Blum said he opposed resignation because it would move the country too close to the British model,
where a prime minister who loses the confidence of the House of Commons must quit, and he
opposes impeachment because he does not believe that "lies told to conceal adultery" are
impeachable crimes. But he confessed to seeing no way out, because he found "a crippled
presidency, which is the third alternative, worse than the others."
A conversation with a group of graduate and undergraduate students at Yale's Timothy Dwight
College evoked little sense of the moral outrage that dominated college campuses on other issues at
other times.
Lyneise Williams, 33, an art history student from Cincinnati, spoke of detecting "a shifting set of
values among political activists, a harsh new morality among Republicans, journalists and the
religious right."
But a few shreds of doubt emerged about the wisdom of Clinton's continuing in office. Andrew
Gerber, 21, an English major from Bethesda, Md., said that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's
tactics bothered him deeply. But he said he could not help wondering, "What does it say about the
president's judgment that he would do these things with Monica when he was already under
suspicion by a lot of people about extramarital affairs?"
Alex Kirshner, 21, a history major from Chicago, said he thought there was no avoiding a lengthy
impeachment proceeding, and "that makes you wonder how Clinton can emerge as an effective
leader." Still, only Sommers among the eight in the discussion group said he thought Clinton should
resign. |
